The Dragons of Ice and Snow Read Free Page A

squealed
in the still air.
    “ Damn
it,” he whispered.
    The door
opened far enough for him to squeeze through and the elementals
followed him.
    The next
room was even larger than the last. Simon looked around and noticed
long assembly lines with dozens of boxes scattered all over the
place. Whatever had been built in this plant had been put together in
this room.
    The frost covering the floor and the walls was
even thicker in here and his footsteps crunched loudly as he slowly
moved toward some heavy machine and crouched down in its shadow.
    “Is there another way out of here?” he
asked Aeris as he slipped Bene-Dunn-Gal over his shoulder and began
rubbing his arms to try to warm them.
    “I'll check,” the air elemental
replied and floated off silently.
    In the silence of the room, Simon could hear his
own heart beating, throbbing in his ears. A reddish pulse flashed
across his vision at each beat and he realized that he was probably
as frightened as he had ever been in his life.
    “Master,” Kronk began. “You have
to get out of here. This cold will be your death if you don't...”
    The little guy's voice trailed off as a distant
sound, coming from the opposite side of the warehouse from where
Simon thought the dragon was lurking, intruded on the brooding
silence of the building.
    It was the sound of massive wings flapping, their
measured beat approaching rapidly.
    Simon groaned.
    “Another dragon,” he whispered as he
looked at Kronk. “You were right. That first one was calling
for help.”
    Aeris flew back to them and gestured behind him.
    “There are double-doors leading to a
courtyard,” he told them in a hushed voice. “The building
seems to have an open area in the center, perhaps it was a garden or
something once. It is covered with a thin layer of snow but is not
too large. Beyond are other doors leading into the far side of the
warehouse, or plant or whatever this place was.”
    He glanced upward as the beating wings seemed to
pass directly above them and then faded again.
    “It is the only way out of this part of the
building, Simon. Unless you want to try magic, you'll have to leave
in that direction.”
    The wizard shook his head stiffly.
    “Casting now, with two dragons this close,
would be suicide. Lead us to the doors, Aeris, and I'll try to figure
out our next move.”
    “Okay. This way.”
    Simon and Kronk moved carefully after the air
elemental, dodging boxes and conveyor belts and trying not to make
too much noise on the frozen floor. They had to stop twice as the
sound of dragon wings got closer and then faded again.
    “One of them is patrolling,” the
wizard told the elementals. They nodded silently.
    They finally reached the doors leading to the
outside. Both had small windows inset into them and Simon used his
sleeve to wipe off some of the frost that obscured his view.
    Just as Aeris had said, there was a small, square
yard beyond the doors. Several little trees, weighed down with snow
and icicles, stood forlornly in what might once have been a garden,
their skinny limbs hanging almost to the ground.
    The snow had been cleared by the wind and was
banked along the walls and the ground looked cracked and barren.
Simon thought that it was level enough for him to run across without
slipping. Hopefully.
    On the other side of the open area, an identical
pair of doors led into the building again. One was hanging off of its
hinges and the darkness beyond made it impossible to see inside. The
courtyard itself looked to be no more than forty feet across.
    Simon hunkered down again as the flapping sound
approached. This time he looked up through the window in time to see
the blazingly white shape of a dragon as it quickly flew into and out
of sight again.
    “The beast seems to be circling in a regular
patrol,” he said to the others. “We're going to have to
time it and run as soon as it passes by overhead. Hopefully I'll have
enough time to get across the yard before it comes around